Night's Embrace
by The House by the Cemetery
Summary: "Do you still remember the sun and the moon? Sometimes I go up to see them, but both scorch like a burning iron. At least in the good old days there were only stars, and golugs had to fight in the same dusk as the rest of us." Discussions between an Orc and an Elf in the dungeons of Angband.


Sixty years ago the sun had risen for the first time to mark the beginning of the Age of Men and the fading of the Age of Elves. Back then some of the Eldar, in their pride, had thought this Valar's last insult to those whose way to Valinor was shut for daring to rise against the Dark Lord and take back that which belonged to them. But at least the sun had been warm and light as it rose in the desolation of the sky; and Angband, carved into the wounds of the earth, was cold and dark and its gates were shut to enemy and ally alike. However, the Ñoldo chained to its depths did not give in to despair. The battle had only just been won and Morgoth's host driven into a corner. Soon would be Angband's gates struck down as well, its caverns purified and filled with light, and then he would return to rest under the stars and moon of Beleriand.

Before that happened, he would only have to endure the fortress' original inhabitants, who for one reason or another had left him alive. Not many Elves returned from Angband, but it was rumoured that especially the greatly skilled Ñoldor were used as slaves in its forges. That the Elf believed he could survive, for he was a skilled smith and even Orcs would surely have the common sense to keep a valuable slave alive. The loss of dignity, on the other hand... that was something he could avenge later.

The echo of the Orc's steps went before the light of his torch. The Elf squinted his eyes; he was not yet even fully accustomed to daylight, and the darkness of the dungeon had made his sight more sensitive than ever. That was the first impression he now made, withdrawn and timid, and the Orc appraised him for long at the door of the dungeon before deigning to speak to him.

"Sindarin?"

So this was the fortress' possibly only Orc skilled with different languages, sent down to interrogate him. For a moment the Elf wondered whether he should reveal being able to speak the Grey-Elven language. If he did that, he would probably be interrogated and tortured to reduce the probability of lying. And if he pretended to be monolingual, he would not be able to improve his station by negotiating should the opportunity present itself. "I speak a little," he finally admitted.

"Good," said the Orc, "not all of your kind did. They were not very useful to us."

"I thought Orcs spoke no Sindarin either," the Elf replied as calmly as he could.

"Nobody does so with pleasure, at any rate. The words stick to our throats like burning tar and they're not even good for obscenities." Strangely enough, the Orc did not seem to suffer any great pains, or then he too was good at pretending to be calm. He turned around to put the torch on the wall. "But the language of Ñoldor I don't wish to hear, so don't use that one. I don't want to hear your name either, nor mine from an Elf's lips."

The Elf could not imagine why an Orc would even consider introducing himself to an enemy, so he only nodded in agreement.

"Can you use a hammer and an anvil?"

So the Orc got straight to the important part. That was good. The Elf, for his part, was going to save him quite a lot of effort by agreeing to cooperate at once. "I am quite skilled at it."

"Then surely it wouldn't bother you if you were to help the boys at the forge a bit while you stay with us?"

To forge new weapons and armaments to replace those lost in battle, the Elf thought, so they could in the future attack his people again. "I will do my best."

"Such a sensible _golug_ you are." The Orc looked almost amused. "I've got a few friends in that corridor who might be a little disappointed to hear that."

Although the paling of the Elf's face went unnoticed in the torchlight, the lines of his mouth tightened visibly. "Have they not had opportunity to torture anyone in a while?"

"Let us just say the lads aren't very good at rationing. And if that siege outside carries on, taking new prisoners might get difficult." Seeing the Elf's ever darkening expression, the Orc got more and more amused. "But don't you worry about your own hide. There are other ways the Lord's troops can use to crawl out, so soon you won't be the only living slave here." He thought awhile as he turned to the mouth of the dungeon. "Although one of the lads may get it into his head that you don't need your legs or other such things for doing your job. We can only hope that impatience doesn't take hold of them as they wait."

The Elf started to rise carefully to hit feet. His chains were heavy, and he was not in full strength. "I am more useful to you if I am whole," he tried.

Although the Orc was already halfway out and by no means obliged to see to a war prisoner's comfort, he nevertheless stopped to glance at the Elf. "Trouble yourself with it later and spend this evening in rest; you are wounded, after all." Now he was positively grinning. "Keep the light."

The torch had barely died when other Orcs came in to fetch the Elf. They took him down to the forge, where he had thought he would work one day at a time and return to his dungeon for the night, but days grew long and devoured the nights and the next time he saw the dungeon, he had long ago forgotten the passing of them both.

"I see you've been hard at work," noted the Orc with malicious joy as he came to see him. In all these years he had changed little in both countenance and character.

The Elf barely suppressed his rage. He had been allowed to keep his legs, but the guards had not spared their whips and for a long time he had been forced to sleep in the clanging of the anvils that ever reminded him of his slavery. "How long have I been here?"

"Long," answered the Orc with relish. "Do you still remember the sun and the moon? Sometimes I go up to see them, but both scorch like a burning iron. At least in the good old days there were only stars, and golugs had to fight in the same dusk as the rest of us."

Now there was no need for the Elf to swallow his hate; it dissolved by itself into disbelief and confusion. "It has been at least two centuries. Fought you under the stars?"

"Under the stars as the cursed moon rose for the first time," said the Orc, finally more serious. "Not many of us survived." He took down the torch that had rotted there forgotten for years and replaced it with the new one he had brought with him. "It may be that we met back then."

The Elf remembered the siege in the Fens of Serech, the last pursue and the flow of Valaraukar falling from the mountains, Fëanáro's body reduced to ashes by the passing of his mighty spirit as Angband rose as a darkness against a weaker darkness, in their sight and yet our of their reach. "If we did, I no longer remember."

"Yes... no reason have the mighty of Ñoldor to reminisce over the enemy's infantry," the Orc said slowly, as though trying to remember something that had been said to him long ago. "Although the same do we think of the soldiers of the Sindar, lesser among Elves."

Although he did not say it aloud, lesser thought the High Elf as well the inhabitants of Beleriand even in his noblest moments, and even lesser thought of the fact that he lived at the expense of those who had been stolen from their ranks.

"But lesser will you become as well, you who came from the West. The darkness of this place diminishes," continued the Orc, "it concentrates and filters and irreversibly changes."

And now trembled the Elf with horror that he had not felt when only his body had been threatened with pain. "I know things that would greatly avail your lord. By my hands have your weapons and armour been hammered stronger."

"And for these gifts of yours do we gratefully thank you," the Orc said, a mocking laugh on his lips. "Your knowledge will serve us even better, but the time for that has not come yet. Our lord is away; it is said in the East has awoken a race of mortals, which he believes will serve his needs well."

To these younger ones or the meaning of their arrival the Elf gave not a single thought. "If he is gone, could you not take me outside even for a moment? I'll not complain even if you walk me to the surface in collar and chains; for all these years have I endured for the sake of hope that I might one day see the night sky again."

For a moment it was as though the Orc considered doing this, as though to make his refusal sting twice as furiously. "I'm going outside today, myself. Would you like me to come down and describe the stars to you later?"

"Cursed one," barked the Elf in a voice that he had not before heard from his own lips. "Let me go!"

The Orc's eyes gleamed with joy. "I will not."

Rage constricted the Elf's throat like something alien that nevertheless had its origin in him. "Then you'll go alone, and I hope you do not tarry. And when deign you next to come mock me? In twelve years? Or twenty-four?"

"That is not for me to decide, but for those who need your helping hands. Still, worry not; your wait begins anew as soon as I leave you."

As the Orc turned to leave, sorrow and despair still had enough strength to overcome the Elf's hate. He would now remain alone as the enemy rose freely out into the night and gazed into Varda's lights. He knew better than to expect compassion or understanding from an Orc, but he nevertheless found himself unable to hold his tongue. "The night has eyes as the sky has stars, and they are all turned to you. Are you not afraid? Are you not... ashamed?"

And against all expectations the Orc did think awhile, pondering his deeds, and allowed a smile to rise to his lips. "Stars have there always been in the sky, and our lord has them always darkened. I am not afraid, I am not ashamed. Let them look. Let the immense night itself stare at me with its unnumbered eyes."

Then he was gone, and the light of the torch was not enough to replace the lights of heavens that had kept hope alive so long with the memory of their sight. The Elf retreated shivering into the corner of the dungeon, too afraid to pray. Into this place Manwë could not see nor Varda hear; no water was here that could have taken message to Ulmo. And he remembered also the Doom that had been cast on those who followed the Silmarils to the East. The roads to the West were to him as barred as the gates of Angband, and the Halls of Mandos would not receive him with rest and comfort. "Nienna," he sobbed although he knew not whether even the Griever could hear his plight. "Nienna!"

In that moment of despair approached the shadows him again and loosed him from his chains; but here in the depths it meant not freedom but slave's work, and into that undertaking of his he now, with the strength of rage and sorrow, drowned all his time without stars. And as beloved as had the starlit sky been to him, more so became now the bottomless dark to which the years saw him finally lose love as well.

When he next was chained to the dungeon, even the familiar Orc had changed a little. He now wore new war-plate that, for a goblin though it was forged, was made by Elven hands and impressive to look upon.

"I got a promotion," boasted the Orc, giving his armour a quick but proud stroke. "And I can see the years have not left you without glory, either."

Had he not been deadly tired, the Elf would have poured more rage into his glare. "I am diminished," he grumbled, "and in the darkness irreversibly changed."

"But the light has not yet gone out of your eyes."

"The last one to die is hope," the Elf muttered.

"Although die it will." Cold was the Orc's gaze again as he stooped over his prisoner, cold and in Angband's horrors marred. "But I will give you a new hope. You are old to begin with, perhaps you'll live to be even older. Perhaps it will be your honour to be one of those who may look upon His eyes in the fire-glow of the world's ending."

The Elf shivered. "I only wish to look upon my home."

"Still?" The Orc seemed astonished. "Even this way, stained by this place?"

"I am not as you who are born and die under Morgoth's power. I am a Ñoldo, and as such I will be recognised, stained though I may be."

To this the Orc said nothing at all.

"On your faces shines your evil," the Elf continued to convince him, "that which is within can be seen on your surface. I am... as for me..."

The Orc was silent for long, only watching. Finally he tilted his head as though assured that the Elf had not convinced even himself. "Shall I find you a mirror?"

The fear returned like a disease left untreated. The Elf turned his head away and trembled in its grasp. "Don't." This time he did not notice the Orc leaving and only barely noticed the hands that unchained him.

And in the untold depths of the wounded earth continued his toiling full of hate and fear, bled pure of joy and sorrow; on the scarred earth's surface the siege continued full of hope of final victory, the sacrifices it demanded still unpaid; and all the time the Black Enemy of the World destroyed all that he could, corrupted the Followers as he had corrupted the Firstborn, and his mighty shadow wavered above the world as though the Walls of Night themselves were falling upon it. But all this was the Elf now indifferent to, not even noticing the return of his new lord and, shrunken in spirit, so attached was he to the suffering of his flesh that he could only perform that one task his body had been set to.

When he was for the last time taken to his old dungeon, there was no longer need to bind him with chains, for his spirit was now tied to Angband by Morgoth's tether.

"Lesser did you become indeed, mighty one of the Ñoldor," noted the Orc as he saw him, without any particular compassion. "But the Elven-light still lingers in your eyes."

The Elf did not tell him of his hope still living on in the works of his hands, in the hope that at least they would one day see the light of the outside world and come to the hands of his people. Beautiful things he had not made in many years, but so blessed with power were his weapons and armours that they were as though they had come from Aulë's furnaces.

"Sooner will die I than hope."

With hard eyes watched the Orc him now. He stooped over the Elf again, as though searching a light of sanity in his eyes. "Your foolishness is far from hope. This was no one's intent nor by anyone foreseen, but now can anyone see..."

"I do not want to hear!"

"Not even our lord with his hammer, forging with this in mind, could have achieved better than what weakness of will has made of you." The Orc reached out to the Elf's face, driven by a strange agitation. "This out of the Firstborn... this corruption out of the pure one, this only thing dividing our races..."

"Do not. Do not!"

"With a mouth like a disease it consumes this flesh, with a mouth like a rift it drinks this blood. In the breast of a beast beats the heart of a beast..." muttered the Orc, as though reciting a spell he had heard before and learned by heart, and pressed his fingers to the black pulse. "...the night's embrace yawns open, a thousand fathoms deep."

"Elbereth!" the Elf cried, and even through the taste of blood returned the language of his childhood to his lips upon which it had fallen silent when he had left the West. "A Tintallë!"

Fear and pain flashed in the Orc's eyes as a lightning from a clear sky; his hand fell back guided by instinct without will, like an arrow already sent at its target, and lashed at the Elf's face hard enough to strike him down to the floor.

So they stared at one another, the Elf only from the corner of his eye, not daring to move his head out of fear of another lash, the Orc petrified over him. "That trick you will not repeat," the Orc panted at last.

"Will you kill me if I do?" the Elf dared to ask.

"No. I will not." The Orc's breath was beginning to level again. After the turmoil, his face was once more unmoving as that of a snake hiding its venomous fangs under a calm surface. "Your tongue I _can_ cut, mind. No one here has yet died of tonguelessness."

The Elf raised his hand to his face. The blow had left a sore mark. "I will."

"Then you can only keep your mouth shut, can't you."

They both fell silent for a long while, both lost in their own black thoughts. Finally the Orc sat down on the floor and curiously studied his prisoner's appearance. "Who is the one whose mere name burns more terrible than the sun and the moon?"

The Elf wiped at his eyes although he had stopped shedding tears many years ago. "She is the one who lit the stars in the sky."

"Our lord fears and hates her," noted the Orc, "that much even I know, though that's not the name by which I know her."

"Yes..." The Elf remembered the darkening of Valinor as the final note to the rot eating away at it, unpierced even by Varda's light. "They knew each other in the far West that is now shut from us corrupt ones."

And now the Orc sat up, his back straight with alarm, all his anger forgotten. "They are both from West? To us has our lord always been the only star in the sky."

"Do you know," began the Elf although his throat wanted to shut at the mere thought of speaking the language aloud once more, "what his name was in the West before the defiling of the Jewels?"

"I know the name of Morgoth, for that is the one the Grey Elves spat on us before we silenced their blasphemous tongues."

The Elf grimaced. "Melkor... Melkórë was his name before that, He who arises in might. He was not the only one, but nevertheless was one of the mightiest."

Although he withdrew from the sound of the word, the Orc's eyes shone at the sight of something long ago lost. "Melkórë..." The name brought out bile with it, but he did not seem to notice. "Mele... kôrë. Mbelekôro!" cried out the Orc, spellbound. "It is an old name, and that language no longer exists. How many hundreds of years has it been, or thousands? I had already forgotten, and the years have for long been so alike."

And those were the words that killed the Elf's hope although he would sooner have died himself. "Many a thousand," he whispered, "on the shores of Cuiviénen to which there is no return. I myself never saw that land." He did know the old stories although he had not dared to believe in them, and now knew that to him the sun and the moon would no more rise, nor even Varda's stars; knew that not a single Vala had the power to help him, nor Eru the desire. On that day died the light of Eldar in his eyes that had seen the Trees glow in Valinor, and final darkness descended upon him as Ungweliantë's web before the defiling of the land of Valar.

"A few old words more should do no harm at this point," the Orc said quietly, and the gentleness of his voice made the Elf shudder. "What is your name?"

The Elf looked into him and saw. There was no more light in the depths of the mountain now than there had been before, but now with his darkened eyes he could in the eyes of his kin see a reflection of himself. "I do not know," he finally said. He supposed he should have mourned his loss. That he could not do.

"No matter," replied the Orc. "You will get a new one."


End file.
